History of Bollywood

At
the turn of this century, when the country was poised for major social
and political reforms, a new entertainment form dawned in India-the
Cinema. The first exposure to motion pictures which India received was
in 1896, when the Lumiere Brothers' Chinematographe unveiled six
soundless short films at Watson Hotel, Esplanade Mansion, Bombay on
July 7. And the first exposing of celluloid in camera by an Indian and
its consequent screening took place in 1899, when Harishchandra
Bhatvadekar (Save Dada) shot two short films and exhibited them under
Edison's projecting kinetoscope. Hiralal Sen and F.B. Thanawalla were
two other Indian pioneers engaged in the production of short films in
Calcutta and Bombay in 1900. Around 1902, J.F. Madan and Abdullah
Esoofally launched their career with Bioscope shows of imported short
films. In 1912 , N.G. Chitre and R.G. Torney made a silent feature film
Pundalik which was released on May 18, and it was half British in its
make.

Dhundiraj Govind
Phalke, more generally known as Dada Saheb Phalke was responsible for
the production of India's first fully indigenous silent feature film
Raja Harishchandra which heralded the birth of the Indian film
industry. The film had titles in Hindi and English and was released on
May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema, Bombay. In 1917, Bengal saw the
birth of its first feature film-Satyabadi Raja Harishchandra made by
Madan's Elphinstone Bioscope Company. In Madras, the first feature film
of South India Keechaka Vadham was made by Nataraja Mudaliar in 1919.

After
stepping into 1920, the Indian cinema gradually assumed the shape of a
regular industry. The industry also came within the purview of the law.
The new decade saw the arrival of many new companies and film makers.
Dhiren Ganguly (England Returned), Baburao Painter (Savkari Pash),
Suchet Singh (Sakuntala), Chandulal Shah (Guna Sundari), Ardershir
Israni, and V. Santharam were the prominent film makers of the
twenties.

The most
remarkable things about the birth of the sound film in India is that it
came with a bang and quickly displaced the silent movies. The first
Indian talkie Alam Ara produced by the Imperial film company and
directed by Ardershir Irani was released on March 14, 1931 at the
Majestic Cinema in Bombay; The talkie had brought revolutionary changes
in the whole set up of the industry. The year 1931 marked the beginning
of the talking ear in Bengal and South India. The first talkie films in
Bengali (Jumai Shasthi), Telugu (Bhakta Prahlad) and Tamil (Kalidass)
were released in the same year.

The
thirties is recognised as the decade of social protests in the history
of Indian Cinema. Three big banners-Prabhat, Bombay Talkies and New
Theatres gave the lead in making serious but gripping sand entertaining
films for all classes of the wide audience. A number of films making a
strong plea against social injustice were also made in this period like
V.Santharam's Duniya Na Mane, Aadmi and Padosi, Franz Osten's Achut
Kanya, Damle & Fatehlal's Sant Thukaram, Mehboob's Watan, Ek hi
Raasta and Aurat. For the first time Ardeshir Irani attempted a colour
picture in 1937 with Kisan Kanya.

The
decade during which the second world was fought and Indian independence
won, was a momentous one for cinematography all over India. Some
memorable films were produced during the forties such as Shantharam's
Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, Mehboob's Roti, Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar,
Uday Shanker's Kalpana, Abbas's Dharti Ke Lal, Sohrab Modi's Sikander,
Pukar and Prithvi Vallabh, J.B.H. Wadia's Court Dancer, S.S. Vasan's
Chandralekha, Vijay Bhatt's Bharat Milap and Ram Rajya, Rajkapoor's
Barsaat and Aag.

The
first International Film Festival of India held in early 1952 at Bombay
had great impact of Indian Cinema. The big turning point camp in 1955
with the arrival of Satyajit Ray and his classic Pather Panchali which
opened up a new path leading the Indian film to the World Film Scene.
International recognition came to it with the Cannes award for best
human document followed by an unprecedented crop of foreign and
national awards. In Hindi Cinema too, the impact of neorealism was
evident in some distinguished films like Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin,
Devadas and Madhumati, Rajkapoor's Boot Polish, Shri-420 and Jagte
Raho, V. Shantharam's Do Aankhen Barah Haath and Jhanak Jhanak Payal
Baaje, Mehbood's Mother India.

Gurudutt's
Pyaasa, and Kagaz Ke Phool and B.R. Chopra's Kanoon; The first
Indo-Soviet co-production Pardesi by K.A.Abbas was also made during the
fifties. The transition to colour and the consequent preference for
escapist entertainment and greater reliance on stars brought about a
complete change in the film industry. The sixties was a decade of
mediocre films made mostly to please the distributors and to some
extent, meet the demands of the box office. The sixties began with a
bang with the release of K. Asif's Mughal-E-Azam which set a record at
the box-office. It was followed by notable productions which include
romantic musical and melodramas of a better quality. Rajkapoor's Jis
Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Sangam, Dilip Kumar's Gunga Jamna,
Gurudutt's Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam, Dev Anand's Guide; Bimal Roy's
Bandini, S.Mukherji's Junglee, Sunil Dutt's Mujhe Jeene Do and the
experimental Yaadein, Basu Bhatacharya's Teesri Kasam, Pramod
Chakravorthy's Love in Tokyo, Ramanand Sagar's Arzoo, Sakhti Samantha's
Aradhana, Hrishikesh Mukherji's Aashirwad and Anand, B.R. Chopra's
Waqt, Manoj Kumar's Upkar, and Prasad Productions Milan were the
significant Hindi films of the decade.

Among
the regional languages, Malayalam cinema derived much of its strength
from literature during the sixties. Malayalam cinema hit the head lines
for the first time when Ramu Kariat's Chemmeen (1965) won the
President's Gold Medal. Towards the end of the decade, Mrinal Sen's
Bhuvan Shome, signalled the beginnings of the new wave in Indian
Cinema.

The New Indian
Cinema emerged as a reaction to the popular cinema's Other Worldiness.
It is a cinema of social significance and artistic sincerity,
presenting a modern, humanist perspective more durable than the fantasy
world of the popular cinema.

Satyajit
Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen were the founding fathers of the new
cinema in India. Acclaimed as India's foremost director Satyajit Ray
has made 30 feature films and five documentaries, tacking a wide range
of rural, urban historical themes. His cinematography places him away
form the inheritors of the neorealist school, and yet his films are
infused with an unusual humaneness. Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar,
Charulata, Jalsaghar, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Seemabadha, Jana Aranya,
Ashani Sanket and Agantuk are some of his outstanding films. He was
fortunate enough to present his films in almost all the leading films
festivals of the world. The national and international awards won by
Ray are numerous.

Ritwik
Ghatak swooped on the Indian scene with new dynamism. His films
constitute a record of the traumas of change form the desperation of
the rootless and deprived refugees from East Bengal .(Meghe Dhaka Tara,
Ajantrik, Komal Ghandhar, Subarnarekha). Mrinal Sen is the ebullient
one-experimenting with neorealism as well as new wave and fantasy. His
notable films are Bhuvan Shome, Chorus, Mrigaya, Ek Din Pratidin,
Akaler Sandhane, Kharij & Khandahar. He has also won several
national an international awards.

The new
wave masters of Kerala, Adoor and Arvindan, consolidated their position
in the eighties with their films Elippathayam, Mukha Mukham,
Anantharam, Esthappan, Pokkuveyil, Chidambaram, and Oridath,
Elippathayam has won the prestigious British film Institute award for
1982. Shaji N.Karun's maiden film Piravi(1988) bagged several national
and international awards and was shown in nearly forty film festivals.
Meera Nair, the young woman director, won the Golden Camera award at
Cannes for her first film Salaam Bombay in 1989. In 1990, Adoor
Gopalakrishnan's Mathilukal won the FIPRESCI and UNICEF awards.

All
in all, it has been a long story of nearly nine decades, with the early
shaky screen images turning into a multi pronged and multi winged
empire of its own, that has yielded about 27,000 feature films and
thousands of documented short films. Cinema has raised India's flag
high in the world as the consistently largest film producer. But when
it comes to quality the flag has to fly half mast. All the above information is courtesy of: All India.Source: http://www.bollywoodwiki.info